Treatment of experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis in rabbits with leupeptin, a protease inhibitor.

We injected 12 New Zealand white rabbits intraperitoneally with 15 mg/kg Leupeptin on alternative days for about 4 months. After 1 week of Leupeptin treatment, they were challenged with purified acetylcholine receptor (AChR) from Torpedo californica in Freund's complete adjuvant. All control animals died within 60 days.

Methods for the detection of a specific Mycobacterium leprae antigen in the urine of leprosy patients.

Two methods for detecting the phenolic glycolipid, PGL-1, a Mycobacterium leprae-specific molecule, in the urine of leprosy patients are described. Both methods rely on the 100-fold preconcentration of the urine, which can be accomplished by a single-step ultrafiltration procedure. The equivalent of approximately 2.

Proteolytic processing of a peptide precursor in Aplysia neuron R14.

The large neurons of the mollusc Aplysia are useful for studying the biogenesis of neuropeptides in single cells. Neuron R14 in the abdominal ganglion synthesizes large quantities of a 10-kDa neuropeptide precursor. The amino acid sequence of this precursor has been defined by analysis of the nucleotide sequence of a cDNA clone.

Expression of the L11 neuropeptide gene in the Aplysia central nervous system.

Neuron L11 in the abdominal ganglion of Aplysia californica is thought to be both cholinergic and peptidergic. In previous studies, we isolated a cDNA clone encoding the precursor for an L11 secreted protein(s) by differentially screening an abdominal ganglion cDNA library. We now report the isolation of genomic clones encoding the L11 cDNA sequences.